Page 58 of Thanking Her Brother's Best Friends

He liked to say that Lila and he did not work out because the time wasn't right. They had different plans for the future.

All the crap you'd say to make yourself feel better after getting dumped the night before you were planning to propose.

Lila found out from a friend and panicked. She had too much living left to do to tie herself to a man who was still figuring his shit out.

To be fair, at the time, all of us were in the same boat. We didn't know if our business would stand or what the future would hold.

But if you asked me, relationships—at least the ones worth sustaining—were supposed to survive that shit, not break because of it.

It was hard convincing Aiden to look at his first and last relationship in that sense. He'd painted it with a stiff golden coat of nostalgic shit.

That meant that whenever we tried to reason with him or help him understand that the relationship had been doomed from the start, he'd become a brick wall. He had a period of blaming himself, cue the crappy poems.

This was followed by blaming her, and then blaming the entire universe of relationships and how fickle they were by nature.

Aiden had reached a point in his life where women weren't the problem, but a relationship? Hell no.

If we ever faced off with our demons, that would be his.

"The sex was pretty amazing, though," Niall offered, trying to lighten the mood. All of us had been feeling low this morning, so I made a decision and decided to keep the restaurant closed for the day.

"It was that bloody phone," Aiden replied, sitting down on the chair and tossing the papers over at us. "And something to do with this shit."

I looked over the first few pages and found a section about Selene's ex, Dave Baxter, who was back in Boston.

I didn't know where he'd been before, but I recognized him immediately. The picture was of the same asshole Niall and I had tossed out of the restaurant a couple of days back.

"Look at this." I handed the paper to Niall.

He took one look at the picture and scowled. "Can you imagine being stuck with a turd like this for as long as she was? I wonder how the hell she put up with him."

"Relationships will do that to you."

I braced myself and looked at Niall. Niall looked back at me. Aiden was about to launch into an impassioned discussion of why relationships were the absolute worst thing.

"Maybe she was too young?" I tried to change the topic. "Okay, how about going out tonight? There's a new Indian place not too far from here. I've heard they have the most amazing vindaloo."

"She probably stuck with him because he's the father to her kid and because she felt she could change him into someone else."

Aiden completely ignored my comment on the vindaloo—a mistake, I'd actually heard rave reviews about it—and let out an angry grunt. "Because that's what all women do, don't they? They have this perfect image of their partner in their heads. I think they even make these imaginary suits. And when they find someone who just about feels like a good fit, they force that fucking suit on him."

"Could be ‘her’ too," Niall interjected delicately. "We're all for free love, brother."

"Yes, him, her, they, it, whatever you'd want to say." He flicked his hand impatiently. "That doesn't matter. It's the fucking suit that's the problem. What if it's a few inches too loose or too tight?"

"We go to a tailor?" Niall asked blandly. I kicked him under the table.

"Oh, shut up." Aiden got up and began pacing the room.

"My point is, you have to meet a set of requirements to please women, and the funniest thing is, they often don't know what they want themselves! Do you know how frustrating that can be? It's like shooting blanks, only even that feels less complicated at times. At least you know what the fuck is wrong with you."

"You sound impassioned," I remarked, not without a slight smile. Selene had rubbed off on our boy. And he was in it, deep.

He wouldn't admit it—in fact, I had no idea if he would carry this secret to his grave. I could only hope that would not happen.

"Can we still take a moment to talk about the sex, though?" Niall asked again, even more hopefully this time.

I kicked him under the table again, but he moved his leg at the last second and I stretched mine too far and earned myself a cramp.

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